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NANSEN 



A Poem 



BY 



REGINALD C. ROBBINS 



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PLKI.ISHKD 15 V 

W.M. Dk.ni'.y & Co., Pri\ti-:rs. 

Boston. 

1898. 







< rit^-'/ 



Copyrighted, 1898, 

BY 

Reginald C. Rohbins. 



NANSEN. 



"'Mid ice and night onward and onward: ice, 

Night unresisted heaving on and on 

Though motiveless yet mightily my life 

In passion of the pack ; pressing on, on 

From nought through nought: no-progress ; passage proved 

Prison; persistence, powerlessness : or Pole 

Or no Pole, equal impotence ! In patience 

My soul sees, even in impotence, fulfiU'd 

The prophecy that built, equipt, launch'd forth 

Her foresight. Yea ; this power, this thrust and stress 

At bend and burst broad, loud below in the bleak, 

M}^ heart holds ; comprehends ; conclusively 

Bursts be3'ond, thrusts down, down and bounds above 

In freedom of buoyancy. My ship, my soul 

Are motive; are. sun and strength beyond aught here! 

"Passion and patience of the universe, 

Doom'd to this dead, eternal ice and night ! 

From nought through nought and nowhere an}' end ; 

No bourne to passage, strength to patience none ; 

Motive to life nor any life save death : 

Moon, and these myriad stars moon-dead to-be ! — 

Yet : what of this that knows, that wills an end. 

This God-I-Am : for-whom, through-whom, in-whom 

Alone are ice and night and any thing : 

This strength-of-suffering, power of life-through-death ; 

Prophet, transcendence of the darkness here ? 

Something, through uttermost of ice and night, 

Will that I question fact ; unfelt before ^ 

vSomewhat essential beyond ice or night 

Questions the doom ; demands, if there be life 

In-me and through-me, how may death persist. 

Ice and night so entomb earth's truth-to-be ? 

World ceases not, though I cease or not-cease ! 

What of world's soul that comprehends ; concludes 

Together nought with nought ; proves passage, bourne ; 

Chaos yet cosmos, sentient-system ing : 

Moon-dearth but sensible by strength of sun ; 

Strength endless, being criterion of end ? 



Of energy-potential kinetized 

Toward equilibrium: equilibrium 

But nothingness, no-force, non-end inane : 

Moon, nought save shown in sloth of swooning hun. 

And if, in such dissemination, ' soul ' 

(Nice nerve- vibration) over and be^-ond 

The grosser substance chemical gain growth 

And power organic over and bej'ond 

The less-organic ; stands the law the same : 

Such and such from the nebula to now 

Mere evolution of the nerve from vague 

Chaos through energy kinetic, sun 

And star and sphere on sphere, through molten mass, 

Rock-metal, vegetation, sinew'd flesh 

To man's brain : and from now back, back to night, 

Cold crystalline benumbing up of nerve 

In cosmical pulsation : now from man 

Back to chill'd coalescence organless, 

Lifeless conglomeration : ice and night ! — 

Ha ! the stars stab, the bellov/ing below 

Mocks to the marrow! Unto ice and night 

Dedicate nerve's destruction ! Now, to-night 

(What of the years of the world if years ^deld nought?) 

Now, to-night end all ; headlong to the doom 

Dash on the blank pack's bosom : far below 

Beat brain out : end the agony ! In name 

Of Kelvin, Huxley, now, to-night I leap : 

Anticipate, make mine the doom of all ! — 



"Mine.-' i\iine the doom of all! I hesitate; 

Hold breath ; breathe deep this agony of air : 

Make it my blood and feel it mine ! I am ! 

Life is what means it to be one of these ! — 

Alive ; I-am ; nebula, nerve or night ; 

Necessitating future still as past 

More and more, past as future, each in each ! 

World ceases not : nor I cease. World I am ! — 

And it is new, this union : yet by will 

To end all proved, made perfect endles.sly 

In intellectual action : Christ-with-Kant ! — 

Faith for the facts ! Feel faith and find fact truth ! 



"This logic of life-origin, this law 

Of link'd necessity ? Can link by link 

Interminably link'd explain one life ? 

Mere mutuality, one molecule 

Save as the mutual mean identity: 

Mj'^-life, or molecule, an union'd world? 

Ay ; in such sort : if just this self of mine — 

God-mechanician to their made machine, 

Else unmechanic mere nonentity ! — 

Hypothesized yet unexplain'd remain 

(Hardly residuum, scarce for fact beyond) 

Still for true sonrce, being synthesis, of these, 

Conscience and explanation, linkage, law — 

(Sunlike to shrinkage of moon soulless else ! ) — 

Not cause, yet all-causation ; through and through 

Immanence and intelligence of all 

Else lawless, linkless, unionless, inane: 

Self-ideality of each through each ; 

Each for-itself forselfness even as I, 

Identified in me as selfhood all : 

The molecule-in-man, man-molecule ; 

Native reality : and only so 

Real at all, molecule or man, for-nie : 

Past, future, none less instant, self-for-vSelf, 

Real union, sentience each ; though yet for-me 

Polar, unmeaning save as union'd now. 

Ay ; that I am, I am : all else in-me 

(As I in-them, through-them, by mutual proof — 

How else, conceived empirics-error, save 

World's self-assertion, countervail'd to mine, 

Insofarforth show Self neutrality?) 

Through-me make mutualit}' of self 

Distinct, determinate, dividual 

Yet individual universally. 

All that I am, I am: this world-of-mine ; 

This universe : alive b}'^ saviorship, 

( Monad or motive) Christhood- vicarage ! 

Development-proved-world-dissipation proves 

By world-retort a false criterion, 

Half-standard contradictory : proves worth 

Of absolute process, progress-regressive 

In pure polarity self-reconciled 



Evolving, mind from matter, most from least. 

Law, from the nucleus to now, but time 

Of self's maturing : ever to mature : 

Even in the space-dissemination, time's 

Ingathering of momentum; human mind 

O'er mental-nebula progressive still 

In mutual-internality of lore, 

Even as o'er physical man the molecule 

Nebular stood, still stands preeminent 

In property-material of force 

Extern, displacement substantive ; alike 

Materio-mental, least and most: one Soul 

Erst nebular, now nebular-humane; 

Ubiquitous, being all-self-spatialized; 

Eternal, being all-temporality: 

Mine erst, mine now, mine still eternally; 

By perpetuity-through-passingness 

(This perfectness of process) nebula 

To now, yet now by being but nebular 

(Past and to-come but poles of permanence) : 

Eternally my universe humane ! — 

Is it, world-mutuality may end? 

Yet mutual how, save well aware through each, 

Alive each molecule — that may not end, 

Being each for-self criterion of end, 

World-mutuality in-self alone ? — 

Ice and night, 'ice' and 'night' (man's metaphor 

For end-unmeaning, dead) but humanly ; 

Ice yet for-ice, night yet for-night, humane 

In selfhood nebular-molecular : 

Moon 5^et for-moon as sun for-sun, one world — 

(Transcending metaphor) each molecule! — 

Union'd, processional unendingly — 

Soul not above, beyond ; but immanent 

Self-reference, intelligence through all ! 

" Lo ! for behalf of such as scarce may speak, 
Lo ! for life's ice and night, life laughs at loss: 
Takes truth from lightning of the blank below : 
Spurns space-dissemination : in despite 
Turns law to law's impassion'd intellect 
Proved in performance of my ship, my soul 



Their prophecy, foresighted impotence ! 

Lo! proved in the patience under pressure, power 

Of passive Pole-persistency (extreme 

Passion of logic push'd to point), behold 

Motived preeminence of manhood-plan 

O'er potency less-mental ; o'er the bleak 

Ice and night I for vicar proving world 

Processive, though pulsation'd : I by proof 

Lifting the lost to life's intelligence ; 

Fact-science to philosophy by faith. 

What of the equlibrium, inane 

Frosting of nerve to nothingness ? By pace 

Equal, if opposite, above, beyond 

The physical degeneration steps 

The 'ps3'chic' subtlet)^ : nor moon nor star 

vShows soul-futurity, save star or moon 

In spirit equal-born ! — And I north, north 

Push, overpower, soul-overweight their world 

Of space-passivity ; their extreme verge 

Of sphere yet union'd Pole through zone, yet proved 

Axial, self-orbited — being but motived more 

Pass on the lamp of light, cramp boundaries. 

Burst and break down the barriers (limit proved 

Barrier but by bursting) ; limitless 

Lead on the more-than-human mind-to-come 

In conquest of physic's frigidity ; 

More and more conquer'd, spurn'd beyond, the more 

Frosted in deadness of new ice and night. — 

Ay ; and in conquest more and more shall world 

(Or human or some supra-human nerve. 

Some more-than-nerve) by reconciling more 

More comprehend, include and lift to light 

The 'deadness' and the 'darkness'; more and more 

Shall time to-come, immanent-now, make now 

An explanation and intelligence 

By selfhood. — As my selfhood, savior now 

Springs forth in fire abroad, auroral, vast 

From stiffening of this Christhood on the cross 

Stark aloft ! From the vicarage complete 

( Torment of stars or mockery of moon ; 

This intellectual agony made mine) ; 

Eternal principle of every end — 



Christ for the ice and night, redeeming these ! — 
For whom alone meaning or end may be : 
World-saviorship that shall not end ! — 

"I rave? 
Drunk with the drench of drouth, of deatli? I freeze? — 
Ha! the skies scoff! I still am doom'd in dream: 
Man, with the dead-eternal ice and night." 



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